Oh! Gizmo

By Andrew Liszewski

If you’re on a diet or trying to lose weight, traveling can be a difficult time. Large restaurant meals and fast-food can wreak havoc with your waist line, and it’s usually never good news when you step on the scale when you get home. But now you can stay on top of your diet while you’re away with this compact travel scale. The foot pads are pretty much as small as they can get while still being able to effectively measure your weight, and can be ‘collapsed’ towards the middle, making the scale small enough to put in a carry-on bag. It features a backlit LCD display that shows pounds or kilograms, and is powered by two lithium batteries.

You can get it from Magellan’s for $39.85.

[ Travel Scale ] VIA [ The Red Ferret Journal ]

By Andrew Liszewski

You can think of the DigiWall as a gigantic version of the WiiFit. But instead of doing physical activities like pushups or skiing, you actually climb it like any other indoor climbing wall. The grips are equipped with individual sensors for hands and feet that allow a computer system running in the background to track the movements of various climbers on the wall. And like with the WiiFit, the DigiWall is designed to make physical activities more entertaining by disguising them as interactive games. On the DigiWall these include ‘Catch the grip’ where you try to touch as many climbing grips as possible in one minute, or even a giant version of Pong where your whole body is used as a paddle as you compete with a player on the other side of the wall.

The DigiWall doesn’t have a traditional video display like a computer monitor, but instead uses the light-up climbing grips to form a large but low-resolution monochrome display. It also relies on a seven channel speaker system for audio feedback, and can even be turned into a giant musical instrument if you wanted to let your creative juices flow. The DigiWall was originally developed at the Interactive Institute’s Sonic Studio in Sweden, but is now a real product that’s available for sale. It comes in 6 meter wide by 2.6 meter high sections that can be combined to create a larger wall, but if you want pricing info you’ll have to request a specific quote.

[ DigiWall ] VIA [ Interactive Architecture dot Org ]

By Andrew Liszewski

For some reason my local mall also happens to be a major tourist attraction, so it’s unfortunately always crowded with out-of-towners who have apparently never seen things like an indoor fountain. On the plus side, the large volume of people traffic means there’s always some kind of over-the-top marketing promotion going on.

This week Nintendo was in town showing off their new Wii Fit peripheral. Now I’m a fan of the Wii, and there have been a few games that have really used the Wiimote controller in new and interesting ways, but I’m kind of undecided on Wii Fit. As a balance board that can be used with skateboard or skiing games it has promise, but at one point someone was using a demo kiosk to do pushups. Did we lose a war or something? How did pushups manage to squeeze their way onto my gaming console? I’m all for innovation, but there’s no high score or secret level that’s worth a round of pushups. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to spend the next 20 minutes struggling to get up off the couch.

By Evan Ackerman

Pedometers are meant to measure the number of steps you take to give you a sense of how far you’ve gone, and by extension, how much exercise you’re getting. Unfortunately, there are some people out there who don’t walk… normally. The Seiko Slimstick uses dual-axis gyro sensors to to determine not only how many steps you take, but also what sorts of steps they are, to better reflect the amount of calories you’re burning and the overall quality of your exercise. It only weighs 15 grams (2cm x 6.4 cm x 0.89 cm) and clips right on to your clothing. It’s currently available from Seiko Japan in a couple different colors for between $55 and $67.

Since it’s Monday, enjoy some very very silly walks after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

By Andrew Liszewski

If you’re an avid cyclist who’s always been frustrated that your local lakes, rivers and ponds are off limits to your bike, then Hammacher Schlemmer has the solution for you. The Performance Water Cycle is a single seat bike designed for use on water instead of land. You’ll have to sit in the same position as if you were riding a recumbent bike, but the pedal-powered 15-inch 2-blade propeller will allow you to reach speeds of up to 7 mph. I guess that’s where the ‘performance’ part of Performance Water Cycle comes in. While you won’t be hydroplaning across the surface of the lake, it’s apparently faster than an Olympic swimmer or a traditional paddle boat.

The Water Cycle can support up to 350 lbs and the fiberglass-covered high-density foam core features precisely balanced pontoons on either side for a stable ride. It needs at least 2 feet of water in order to operate, but it can apparently remain upright even in waves as high as 3 feet. You can get it from Hammacher Schlemmer for $2,995,95, which is smart pricing because if they had listed it for $3,000 I would said it was too expensive.

[ Performance Water Cycle ] VIA [ Born Rich ]

By Evan Ackerman

The Yamaha BodiBeat (it’s actually BODiBEAT, but I’m not going to do that) is an MP3 player designed to make exercise a little bit more palatable by automatically playing music that matches the pace of your movement. You can load it with 512mb of music, and using an internal accelerometer, the BodiBeat will pick a song that has a tempo as close to your bouncing up and down speed as possible. When you change your pace, the BodiBeat will change the music. You can also set it to play music at your optimum running or walking speed, which it figures out with a pulse monitor that clips onto your ear. If you get really ambitious, the included software allows you to design entire music-based fitness routines. It has some other neat features like tracking distance, keeping exercise records, and learning what types of music you like. The 9hr battery life isn’t bad, but the half gig of memory makes it almost useless, since the whole point of this thing is to have enough music at different tempos to take advantage of the adaptive hardware. Oh, and it won’t play anything with any sort of DRM on it, including iTunes music. Concept: good. Execution: horrible.

BTW, if you click through to the BodiBeat website, you can get a flash tour from either hunky Brad or svelte Stacy. Brad is 6′0″, 185 lbs, and 28 years old. He’s a scorpio, and his favorite foods include seafood, steak, and taffy. Stacy is 5′9″, 120 lbs, and 26 years old. She’s a pisces, and her favorite foods include pasta, fruit, and licorice. Both Brad and Stacy are single, too! Thanks Yamaha!!!

The BodiBeat should be available this spring or winter (depending on what part of the website you believe) for about $300.

[ Yamaha BodiBeat ] VIA [ Shiny Shiny ]

By Andrew Liszewski

It’s nice to see one of the probable causes of weight gain being used as a solution to the problem. Ubisoft has just announced a new title that should be available this summer called My Weight Loss Coach. The game, which is targeted at casual and presumably overweight players, uses a combination of customizable coaching sessions and a pedometer accessory to promote and track physical activity. The pedometer can be synced to the DS, and will not only keep track of your daily physical effort, but will also help you balance your food intake. Unfortunately there are no photos of the accessory at this time.

Rumor has it the game was originally titled My Powdered Donut Eating Coach, and was to be targeted at players with ambitions of competing in the MLE (Major League Eating) or to those who just didn’t feel like exercising. But concerns that players would become too obese to play future Ubisoft titles caused the company to switch directions. I think it was a good decision, since I’m sure we all remember the fallout from the N64 game, My ‘Put Gravy On Everything’ Coach.

[ Kotaku - Ubisoft Helps You Lose Weight ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Where I used to work we were given a Powerball as a promotional gift, and being able to get it up to speed from a dead stop was as much a workout as keeping it going once it was spinning. So to me, this Docking Station that will automatically get the Powerball spinning at up to 18,000 RPM at the push of a button is kind of a cheat. Of course there were some people at the office who were never able to get it going from a dead stop, and for those lacking the necessary coordination and natural rhythm this is probably a necessity. But as far as I’m concerned being able to do it all on your own is half the challenge.

You can find the Docking Station which includes a Dynaflex Powerball at Edmund Scientific’s for $59.95.

[ Dynaflex Powerball & Docking Station ]

By Andrew Liszewski

This isn’t the first device I’ve written about that uses water to enhance your exercise routine, but it’s definitely the most elaborate. The AquaFit 19DT or ‘Dual Temp’ is an oversized hot tub that can provide you with a vigorous workout, or a relaxing soak. One side includes equipment for rowing exercises, cardiovascular activities like running or jogging as well as an endless pool for swimming stationary laps. The other side, which can actually be set to a different temperature is a bit more relaxing with fully adjustable, hydrotherapy jets perfect for a post-workout massage.

Not surprisingly the AquaFit 19DT comes with a price tag of about $40,000, not including installation and the necessary preparations for where you’re going to install it.

[ AquaFit 19DT ] VIA [ Bornrich ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Music can be a great motivator when exercising, but some songs are better suited for it than others. So while you can use any MP3 player when you head out for a jog, the BODiBEAT from Yamaha is designed to automatically select songs that best match your current activity using both a built-in accelerometer to keep track of your footsteps, as well as a heart-rate monitor that clips onto your ear.

It has 4 different operating modes you can choose depending on what your goal or routine is. The Free Workout Mode will automatically choose songs that have a similar tempo to your walking or jogging speed. As you speed up or slow down, the player will select a different song that better matches your new pace. The Fitness Mode will try to provide the most appropriate music for an optimal aerobic exercise based on your heart rate. It will play faster songs if you’re moving too slowly or slower songs if you’re moving too quickly. The Training Mode is apparently designed for serious athletes, and it allows you to create structured exercise sessions with preset time intervals and specific targets for heart rate, running pace or song tempo. Finally there’s the standard Music Mode which will make the BODiBEAT function like any other MP3 player, playing music by artist, album or whatever you choose.

The BODiBEAT is expected to be available in Winter 2008, but I’m not sure if that means the beginning of the year, or the end of the year.

[ Yamaha BodiBeat ] VIA [ The Red Ferret Journal ]